Posts filed under 'Social Events'

One of my favorite things that I do weekly is Trivia Night with some MAcc friends at a local bar called The Grandview Cafe. The place is packed (usually 20+ teams) with grad students and young professionals every Thursday night for a competitive and challenging round of trivia. Some friends and I started going early in the semester and have gotten hooked. We’ve finished in second and third in the past, but we’re still striving for gold!

Prof. Zach heard about our Trivia Night tradition and decided that he wanted to join in on the fun. He’s gone with us the last two weeks and definitely carries his weight, particularly with his knowledge of sports and world geography. One of the great things about the MAcc program is that our faculty and staff are down-to-earth and genuinely interested in what we are doing. Whenever I see Prof. Arya, our program director, he likes to check in to see how our trivia team is doing. There is such a fun, relaxed learning environment here with a great work hard, play hard mentality. Trivia Night is just one example of the many things that MAcc students are up to outside of the classroom!

Prof. Zach joins us for Trivia Night!

Check out Columbus Trivia Challenge if you want to play – they host trivia Sundays through Thursdays at different locations throughout Columbus!

As a grad student pretty much all of my week nights are filled with classes or study sessions, so it’s nice when I have a night off to take a break from school and enjoy something fun around campus. Obviously, Ohio State is a huge football school, but during the cold winter months basketball is a fun sport to watch here in Columbus. There are also a number of other great sporting events during the winter, including the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Ohio State ice hockey team. In fact, later this month the whole MHRM class is going to a Blue Jackets game together, which will be a fun outing. Last Wednesday I went to the OSU vs. Penn State basketball game and had a blast. It’s really easy as a grad student to get affordable tickets to the basketball games. My seats were in the second row, and I even got to meet Greg Oden who was there watching the game and supporting the Buckeyes. I’d definitely recommend going to at least one basketball game just for the experience. It’s definitely a good way to fill the void when football isn’t in season.

As the first semester of the MAcc program came to a close, some students had more than just finals on their minds. The last week of finals corresponded with the announcement that The Ohio State University’s football team made the first ever College Football Playoff and would be playing Alabama in the Sugar Bowl on New Years Day. Hearing this news numerous MAcc students had their sights set on making it down to New Orleans to be part of the game and support the Buckeyes. Luckily, around 10 or so MAcc students got tickets for the game either through the student lottery or other various ways; I was lucky enough to receive a free ticket from the student lottery provided by Taco Bell. Through group messages and talking at lunch, we were able to plan the drive and hotel situation. Since we were on break, many people were driving from different parts of the country (including one person who took a 16 hour megabus trip).

Cafe Du Monde

Once we all got to New Orleans we made a plan for the trip. We spent all of New Years Eve day in the city, seeing the sights and fully exploring the culture of New Orleans. We stopped by Cafe Du Monde to enjoy some beignets and coffee, which is a must if you are ever there. We also enjoyed an early dinner on Bourbon Street and were able to get some signature Louisiana dishes you always hear about. New Orleans is without a doubt a city worth visiting if you get the chance (go to Pat O’Briens).

Jackson Square

Luckily for us we weren’t there just to see the city, we went for the Sugar Bowl. New Years Day we got to the Superdome early to pick up our tickets and check out the pregame festivities. The atmosphere surrounding the game was unreal and the streets were packed with both Ohio State and Alabama fans. Having won a ticket in the student lottery I was able to be part of the student section and had seats only 11 rows up from the field. It was a great game to be a part of and Ohio State was able to come away with a win, putting them in the National Championship against Oregon. The whole experience was something I will never forget and it was wonderful to be able to share it with some of my best friends from the MAcc program.

One of the greatest things about Fisher, which seems to come up quite often when I speak with prospective students, is the unique and supportive culture that we have here among students, staff and faculty. I truly believe it is rare to find a culture of collaboration where, for example, you can prep for an interview with a classmate who is interviewing for the same job. And, to have a community that truly cares about each other, their successes and their well-being.

That is the community that Fisher Follies, our unique social and non-profit organization here at Fisher, aims to foster. We raise money for the Fisher Follies Fund, which is a relief fund that make gifts (both monetary and in-kind) to any graduate student in the Fisher community that is facing extreme and unexpected hardship. Students are able to anonymously nominate themselves, or they can be nominated by two of their peers.

Each year, we hold a Fall Auction event that raises money for this fund. All auction items are donated by students, staff and faculty and range from dinner and desserts with other students or faculty, to your own personal “hype man” for a week, to a lavish trip to California to visit the “sea and c-suites” with one of your favorite professors. At this year’s event, which occurred on November 21st, we had over 110 items donated for our silent and live auction and over 200 people in attendance. Considered our “cocktail” event in the fall, it was a great time for everyone to dress up, take pictures at the photo booth, and socialize with their friends and professors.

In addition to it being an incredibly fun event for everyone, it was tremendously successful. We raised over $23,500 for the Fisher Follies Fund, which is the most money we have every raised at our annual auction! All of which goes directly back to students in need. This year, we unveiled the launch of our website, www.fisherfollies.com, so I encourage everyone to check it out to learn more about the Fisher community and the great things that we do as an organization.

Now that the auction is over, Fisher Follies will move on to begin writing and directing skits for our annual Variety Show in the Spring (February 20th), which celebrates our success and camaraderie as a community, and essentially enables us lampoon each other after a year of taking ourselves way too seriously.

International exposure and work experience is becoming hugely important in the business world. This year I had the pleasure of attending the Columbus International Festival. I’m a member of the Fisher Global Business Association and we used the festival as an opportunity to come together and have a fun international experience.

A small group of us hit up the Ohio State Fairgrounds to see what the rave was all about. Thankfully it was indoors; if you don’t already know about Ohio it starts to get a little chilly in November. Obviously from the start of the festival we were pretty focused on FOOD, who doesn’t love food. I settled on some bubble tea and Chinese, but I couldn’t help but take a picture of this humungous pretzel.

Throughout the few hours we were there, there was a stage hosting various styles of dances from all over the world. The variety was great, and ever better, some acts featured some cute kids doing their best to impress the audience. I captured some good ole bag pipe action.

Outside of the food and performances, there were various booths ran by different international organizations from Columbus and a lot of shops with cool cultural knick knacks. Columbus is always hosting cool festivals that present you with new food and cultures that you may not have had the opportunity to confront otherwise. There’s a whole world out there, go experience it!

So as shocking as it may seem, I have never been to a men’s basketball game. I know that seems blasphemous to some but no worries, that was remedied Friday night. I had the pleasure of attending the first basketball of the season against UMass Lowell. Now I know UMass Lowell doesn’t seem like a super intriguing matchup, but it was actually a lot of fun. Students are able to sit super close to the action and members of Block O make sure to keep the energy up in the Schott. OSU ended up winning 92-55. Don’t feel too bad for Lowell though, they are the “Cradle of the American Industrial Revolution” which is a title Columbus is unable to claim.

The weekend of sports continued to Saturday when the Buckeyes took on the Gophers. This was a more important game than everyone had anticipated with Minnesota eking out a top 25 ranking. The MAcc class watched at Hounddog’s Pizza, the best pizza place in Columbus (well at least I think it is the best pizza place in Columbus…)

My table at Hounddog’s!

We all had a great time eating pizza, hanging out, and cheering on the Buckeyes to a 31-24 win. Hopefully we can win this weekend against Indiana before taking on Michigan. The Michigan game is a horse of a different color, can’t wait to attend over Thanksgiving and fill everyone in on the adventure!

The MAcc program does a great job of setting up social events for everyone in the program. Getting the feel for the season, we obviously had to go to a pumpkin patch. One Friday after class we carpooled our way there and enjoyed the beautiful fall Ohio weather. The pumpkin patch included a corn maze and a sunflower maze, and even a small petting zoo. Clearly the best part though was the tractor ride through the pumpkin patch. We got to go out and rummage through all the pumpkins until we found a keeper. This may sound simple, but finding the perfect pumpkin is harder than it sounds. Eventually I was able to find my perfect pumpkin! The entire event was a great way to be able to hang out with people in the program and just relax outside of the classroom.

After we went to the pumpkin patch everyone took different approaches on what to do with their pumpkin. I got together with a couple friends in the program one night to carve our pumpkins so we could display them outside.

Some people love Halloween for the cool costumes and others love it because they love being scared and scaring others. I fall somewhere in the middle, but I try to take advantage of it all, and there is no shortage at the Ohio State University or Columbus. This year, I had the opportunity to visit one of the state’s coolest haunted houses and attend some great Halloween parties.

The weekend before Halloween Columbus hosts one of the year’s big entertainment events, High Ball. Spectators have the opportunity to show off their cool costumes and watch bands and even a couture Halloween costume fashion show. A lot of people are surprised to know that Columbus is the nation’s third largest fashion capital after Los Angeles. You probably won’t see my costume on the cover of Vogue, but I made a pretty solid Clark Kent.

No need to wait for an organized event to participate in the spook of the season. Just outside of Columbus, in Pataskala, Ohio stands the Haunted Hoochie. A very interesting name for a super scary place. No pictures are allowed so I don’t have any proof, but don’t just take my word for it, actually go. Though I waited in line for far too long, I spent a good 30 minutes shaking with fear as I walked around each corner of this maze like building, constantly being taken off guard by bloody men and women holding chain saws, bone grinders and circular saws. If you’re into haunted houses, it’s a must to go to the Haunted Hoochie.

I rounded off my Halloween tour with the Fisher College of Business Graduate Halloween Party. This event was put on by our social chairs, who rented out a campus bar for us to gather as a group and celebrate the holiday. It was definitely a Happy Halloween!

While the softball game we played versus the second years was mainly for networking and getting to know our fellow MBAs, the Fisher 1st Year Flag Football Championship was all about pride.

Scarlet vs. Gray (Except the Gray Team is in red and vice versa)

After playing soccer intramurals with two different teams due to roster size limitations, we again had to split the Fisher first years who wanted to play intramural flag football into two teams, the Fisher Scarlet and Fisher Gray teams. I captained one team and another first year who organized most of this captained the other. We drafted all the students who wanted to play onto one of our two teams in snake-draft fashion (we missed out on having an NFL Draft-style stage to do this in the lounge).

My team went for speed (and missed taking the fastest player) and the other went for size and players who looked like they could play actual tackle football.

There was a three game season and after rain outs and rescheduling, our two teams were scheduled to meet in an epic clash across from Fisher Commons, at Fred Beekman Park, in the 2nd of the three games. You just needed to win one of the three games to make the playoffs.

The Scarlet team was absolutely jobbed out of a win in their first week after the refs completely mishandled the most basic rules of the league. The Gray team got absolutely pounded by law students, one of whom was a former BYU quarterback (yeah well I passed the NY State bar so I’m better than those law students anyway. Jerks). So a playoff spot was on the line in the Fisher v. Fisher game.

I can’t speak for the Scarlet team, but our Gray team had an hour and half long practice before the game at the ARC at OSU and got all of our formations and routes down. We figured out who was going to play what position and how to best exploit the rules for the game. We figured out which one receiver to focus our defense on. Real business school thinkin’ right here.

Thrilling high octane offense

There wasn’t much action in the first half aside from turnovers and me getting decked by a girl (this happens a lot when I play sports. Usually by the same girl). A couple of interceptions almost got returned for scores, but nobody was able to get through there and the defenses consistently stopped the offenses after the turnovers. Things finally heated up, however, on the last play of the first half when the opposing QB dropped back to pass and threw an incompletion. But of course ya boy committed roughing the passer and they got another play.

Halftime Huddles

What happened then was bogus to say the least. The other team’s best receiver CLEARLY stepped out of bounds multiple times but the refs missed every one and they scored on the last play of the first half on a play that started with zero seconds on the clock. They missed the conversion but went up 6-0 at the half.

The Gray team scored on a QB scramble to tie the game and would score another touchdown to go up 13-6. The Scarlet team got a few chances but couldn’t even it up. They ended up with one more drive to attempt to tie the game.

Us on defense

On the last play, with only a few seconds left, their quarterback threw a desperation heave to the flag and somehow completed it and made the score 13-12 with no time on the clock. They had to complete the one point conversion to be able to get the game to be a tie and likely send both teams to the playoffs pending final standings.

But the Scarlet team got too cute. On an end around to the Copedaddy, Ben Prater, fellow author on this blog, dove and took off the Copedaddy’s flag and ended the game 13-12. The bench exploded onto the field and nearly tackled Mr. Prater.

We got a bunch of MBAs to come out and watch and played a hell of a close game. Everyone who played had fun and everyone on the sidelines was getting into it. Even the class Grandpa (<3 you B-Rad).

My Gray team made the playoffs and the Scarlet team missed by a point and a referee mess up. And it turns out, we may be playing the second year Fisher team if we can win our first playoff game. My god.

One of my favorite parts of the MAcc program is getting to know my fellow classmates! As the VP of Social Events for MAcc Council I want to try and plan events that as many students as possible want to participate in. The first event was a trip to a pumpkin patch! The pumpkin patch was about a half hour away and we all car-pooled over. There were quite a few things to do while at the pumpkin patch — mazes, a hayride, a hay barn (or as they call it, a “fun barn”), and as a bonus there were donuts. Oh! Of course, we were also able to pick out a pumpkin and take it home with us!

Posing with pumpkins!

While there were a lot of things to do while there, the best part was getting to speak with some of my fellow MAccers! It is always more fun to talk outside of class and get to know each other besides chit chat between group work. I really appreciate all the students who came out to enjoy the wonderful fall day!

The full group at the patch!

While there are a limited number of official events planned each semester through MAcc Council, that doesn’t mean that those events are only times we see each other outside of class! Every weekend we try and get people to get together and watch the game or just hang out. I have been pleasantly surprised by how close I have already become with my classmates. This is definitely a huge benefit of the program, since so many people are not from Columbus or Ohio State, people are always open to try new things and explore campus. Breaking out from your comfort zone and meeting new students is sometimes hard but the benefits are so huge! I think this is something that students from OSU undergrad should try and keep in mind as well as they continue their experience at OSU into graduate school. I know that the people I meet here will be people I stay in contact with as we all begin our professional careers and beyond!